the Breadbox Parsons

[two] November 2008

2008-11-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

[Allie Moreno][Lance Newman][Sawako Nakayasu]

[Cherise Bacalski][Marika Josephson][Curry Mitchell]

[Adam Bishop]

Allie Moreno

I

one red
balloon
to float here
slightly

II

never sifted
more
than twice
sniffed

III

the fight
for invisible manongs
goes tick tick
empty

_______________________________________________

Lance Newman

Baghdad Swing

-- after Lorenzo Thomas

Maybe grave hucksters
selling ancient wisdom
will gossip on my doorstep.

Maybe the Sunday papers
will deliver ten fat sections,
orthodox as Deuteronomy.

Before, we scowled, backpacking to Fallujah,
ransacking shoe stores on random corners,
tuning out the babble of customers and clerks.

We'd muse along the cemetery fence
before the pace of shelling picked up
and a battered Abrams clunked onto the field.

After a long time
nobody was silent
anymore.

Baghdad was a nowhere
where they never have tomorrow
and yesterday was once upon a time.

Watch.
Sometime
a crowd
will stop
waiting.

Subject: Horizon

-- after W. H. Auden

Men lieutenant
their sons, skins

signed for shields.
Bombardment,

lonely columns. Grief
loiters in another's boots.

The .mpg pitch
features million-watt

machinery. Medals
flicker on fatigues

congregating for music
and sweet shoulder meat.

First-class ships
glide where olive

girls manage concrete
and the thin-lipped

help can never
stomach air power.

___________________________________________________

Sawako Nakayasu

9.8.2003

A pile, a layering, a gathering of more than one kind of trust.

Learning to sleep belly up, without fear of a large angular object such as a bookshelf or a park bench or a giant brick landing on my stomach as I lay sleeping.

Letting my mouth hang open in my sleep, without fear of a peculiar sort of spider crawling inside and laying eggs and causing a mysterious disease to appear seven years down the line.

Letting the dog out of the yard, believing it will know where to return to when hungry, cold, or lonely.

previously published by One Less Magazine

From a collection titled "Texture Notes," forthcoming 2009
_______________________________________________

Cherise Bacalski

excerpt from (under traces of you)

(for Christopher)

6; murmurous estandartes, eternities speaking over drowning waterbugs; near explosion at dark ellipse or, blue shirt in spectacles, always spectacles; blue bug, afterward blue sky & fickle light clouds, sweet kisses, and light licking small turquoise bit.

·

·

6; blue bug, brown eyes & curly white tresses trouncing over sleeping baby, dreamy pajamas for lactase and little sister; long proof, hard chair, long red blood & wet breath:

sleeping alone of late and strange, sleeping pills & sleepy eyes touching light; mourning midwifery with wet moaning, soft giggle trees; coyotes crying on or in; tissue drying tears everywhere, tears for mothers, mothers of dead children, tears for mothers.

·

·

5 something writing and watching the Brave awaft in cavernous mists of song & hymnal pleasure, lines with penitence over pulpits; fist back furry fast, purposeful gack for gabardine cloths; empty on stash for ten miles of pills & wet waters; blue water and sky, scattered cumulous clusters:

Two for one, always, when short eyes ask for turquoise rapture.

·

·

6ish; your sweaty breath to recognize, and hold me a while.

·

·

6; consciously causing sappy blood drip; urinary obstacles in saffron tract & promissory notes, like gail o’grady and silver broaches; buzzing about byaetta in larynx somewhere.

·

·

7 and sleepy; spectacles gather bun; the wearinesses of the writing of light and such; parents switching babies, and holding and tears—but butter & freshest ingredients may aid the letting out of breath and make me breathe that way; sleeping somewhere, sleeping someone; inning & out, oh yes, oh you.

________________________________________________

Marika Josephson

linger persist recede

tea
leaves sour
milk

laugh
lines quiver
lip

.

wrap
hammer head
stone

knuckle
bolt lock
twist

.

chalk
blind sea
scape

white
cap wrist
disc

.

_________________________________________

Curry Mitchell

Mimic

I want to say, hey, theory, stop.
pots e-roth eh as ut naw eye.

cold clatter rocks and I

a man calms, is calming, around me
and telling me, I should e-roth
say and be, around others and him

pots and’t…and’t naw

a savior acts this way
wants us all to be that
for him

roi-vas e-roth

a savior books and another
writes ‘Savior Theory’
all over
all over
me and the wall

clatter clock and e-roth

a savior acts this way and
I write
fuck and find me

I want to say, hey…

fuck and find me
find me and I’ll raw, gnaw and e-roth

pots stutter shot and shame

Lit Finch Sounds; My Bong Noises

finch, fit, flight.
fee flit.
huh
cracker carrot cattle cut
up
who.
she shimmer
shitty shell shear
chef shellac.

cord.
marmalade.
clock.
who…

fight, frick
huh
kitchen, coffin, crypt corner
curb
hieroglyphic clack,
hydrogen killer.
sherry.
odd.
who…

undulation.
ambulance.
alabaster ale.

dude.

__________________________________________________

Adam Bishop

Sex In An Underwear Drawer

It wasn't clear what I was looking at. The paper was creased and tattered on the corners and the people drawn on the paper looked strange. What were they doing? Their naked bodies were mangled together in a mess of pencil and ink on half-a-sheet of notebook paper.

Michael held his picture up with confidence. "I copied it from a book I found in my mom's closet." He beamed with pride. His work was wild. It was art at a primitive stage. It was sex.

I can still see the crumpled paper every time I think of my first encounter with sex. Not my first sexual encounter, but my introduction to those proverbial birds and bees. I think about Michael's excitement with the rumpled secret he hid in his underwear drawer. I think about the misshaped breasts and funny penises adorned by the picture's participants. That day, Michael introduced me to more than erotic art – he introduced me to hot, scribbly, kama-sutra sex.

By the end I had my conclusion. If this was art, I still had a lot to learn. If this was sex, I had adoption to consider. Sex didn’t look comfortable. Sex didn’t look fun. Sex was an ugly, messy, crumpled bit of fantasy that was better left in an underwear drawer.

[one] August 2008

2008-08-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

[John Darnielle][Allison Reitz][Lauren Espinoza][Sandra Doller] [Courtney Kilian][Allie Moreno][Cherise Bacalski][Ben Doller][Marika Josephson]

John Darnielle

Who, in 1973
did every kid on my block want to be?
Bruce Lee.

We tried out his kicks and his punches, but we
could never quite match the intensity.

There was easy-to-read iconography
in the stock stills. See here, where, miraculously,
on an island somewhere in a nameless sea
he stands scratched-up and angry and bleeding and free?

It was Enter the Dragon. Collectively,
to ourselves, sotto voce, then: that's for me.

Allison Reitz

The Ides of March

When you sat in the grey light,
talking about your dying grandmother
with a distant voice and eyes focused
on the flurries falling hurriedly outside the window,
I almost choked on the lump in my throat,
hearing those downy, white words
soaked with a heartache as heavy as snow.
And it was my own grandmother I saw,
riddled with dementia and lost in years of fog,
teetering in her hospital room on the edge
of feeling fat-and-sassy
and feeling like giving up.
It's March, almost spring, but you're
playing jazz renditions of Christmas standards —
"Because it's snowing."
And in that moment I could kiss you,
with my swollen heart spilling over and
a soul willing to swallow your sadness.
Because suddenly, and in spite of
the miles in your eyes and gravel in your voice,
we are closer and softer than ever before.

The Modern Life

We are not the humans we were born to be
until we have plugged in our USB umbilical cords
and jacked in to the hive mind.

We are the iPod people, bodies snatched
and swapped with surround-sound souls,
our eyes (windows) replaced with plasma flat screens
displaying our shallow lives in high definition.
(TiVo it for later if something better is on.)

Our hearts display neon digital affections
worn at the hip for easy access, all physical,
no emotions — put it all on the line, online for
pedophile perverts to Google and Yahoo at.
(Analog is outdated and difficult to decipher.)

The powerhouse of the human cell
is no mitochondria but a lithium ion battery.
We put our lives on vibrate and let
our voicemail speak when we cannot,
apologizing for our absence:

"Sorry, I'm not here. I've checked out
emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
Please leave a message at the —"
BEEP.

Lauren Espinoza

Untitled

Captivate the valley floor
with artificial light.
They keep utterly divisible clusters on earth
except the particles eating the sky.
Rainclouds drop fluid
printed with a hiccupping of oil.
The weather roils by
abstracted to beautiful streams
of superior time.
This rainsoaked product is life.
Life is retrieved in a disaster
fitted with evidence that prayers
are answered everyday.
Time speaks of continents
so far away from home
in the mind’s would-be limitless eye.

Untitled

Like a jukebox sitting in the corner
And you ask me for quarters.
I give you five dollars worth
Out of my Ziploc bag
Surrounded by ones, fives, and twenties
To which my friend says,
“Put that away-
You look like a drug dealer.”
But you laugh.
I smile.
A dozen songs later
We’re sitting in the corner
With ten empty bottles.

Sandra Doller

On Seeing Abbie Hoffman in a Book Store

I wish somebody would
steal a rare book
a duck
a bloodhound

The sidewalk is staring
why stall
still

That book was either lost or stolen
lost
stolen
lost
stolen
stolen
lost
lost

Paradise-A-Million
is a dealer
in rare books

That’s Shakespeare for “bottoms up”
and he grabs
his knees
and leaves

PLOTS & MONSTERS

Plot monster
doesn’t mind the rain

Oughtn’t the tin hat
on the sculpture
speak more?

Clearly she wrote
I disabuse friendship
of me

Grey padded rain
paid off
my pirate business

The stealing of the fish from the sea
for the dog

Stories out of a glass pocket
my intuition says Hey
Where’d you get that ring and
trumpet
I can see you clenched by them

She green glass growing
by the mark
on her shoulder
she sold

I had a diatonic too
once the old man entered
our fiery room
the pitted politicians we rented
swooned

To tear harmony
out of the wall where it was
catching a nap

The royalest prince
came over to me
shook his fist
said won’t you call on me
upstairs at my newborn castle
sometimes

The princess of peas
had run out of the cold
she wanted to borrow
some leather
I gave her my back
she stood in the rain
with her skin turning feathered

On the day after Sunday
a black horse in chain mail
was sleeping beside my road
slick stallion he carried
my back on his back
petite princess had sent it return

Wet table beside us
watch out for that rock
in the rock river

Take 3 sticks
and shake yourself
all over

How does the forest halt
in front of the water
like that?

Take a thing and make it
plotty

Three sisters have always had it
buddy

Go into the schools
you came from
royal back against
the pavement
sister overcast wags
at you from the broken speaker

All the girls from here have gone on
to cheaper things

Don’t fly anymore by the crux
of her skirt

Every Sunday a different
green shaker

By the time you reach a destination
the suits will all be on again
your dress of nails
will seem so
purchased

Clay pot clay easy broke
you gave me 13 things
to look at
you gave me 16 ways
to scream it
you gave me 101 reasons
for leaving
you gave me 65 types
of nothing

I have been frightened by the sight of
the next thing
you have so many different
ways of leaking
somewhere deep the hot lights
made my kimono an ocean

La gloire La Swanson had eaten
all Paris by the time
her sad ocean lined her
negatives lined the liner

I had a freight train
a sandwich
a piece of the pie

But now I know how to return
a gaze

Courtney Kilian


Seaside’s Yawn

The seaside’s yawn - a night on the verge of inception. Looking around my attic (a cardboard box). Got a little poison. Zipped, jazzed. Sequined leashes, studded lassos. "What we see – then blinds on fire." Coagulating throngs. Backrush ripen, float, sour. Dredging erosion. The fan blades trace the room, a tracking. I brew the tea as black as it would go. Riprap: A layer, facing, or protective mound of stones randomly placed to prevent erosion, scour or sloughing of a structure or embankment. Also the stone so used. The geriatrics are out. I sit on a bench and talk to myself. I am practiced in the art of soliloquy.

Syringed

The night before my MRI, I dream of dogs. And shaking chairs. And bicycles hanging from a swaying ceiling. Syringes at $100 a pop. The ones insurance will not cover. And I need the whole rack. I dream of running. Of manholes and couches made of thumbtacks. Of paperclips in microwaves. Of absinthe and lighter fluid. I dream of getting nowhere. Of having my vitals tested and retested…

I lay on the cold leather of the MRI table looking up at a blank ceiling. The technician locks my head into the metal gear to keep me still while I am in the machine.
He takes my arm. “I’m just going to clean the area with a little alcohol.”
“It’s ok. Just do what you need to, but you don’t have to walk me through it. It will be better. I have a problem with needles.”
“Ok, we just need to find the vein.”
“Ok, but please you really don’t need to tell me anything. It would be better if you didn’t.”
He squirms uncomfortably as he holds my arm. “Ok, I just need to tell you this. I need to tell you one thing.”
“Ok.” I have no idea what could be so pressing.
“So, what we’re using today is a pediatric size needle. See, it’s not too thick.” I shudder and look away. He continues. “We’re just going to inject you with a water based dye that will help highlight certain brain activity. If you have any reactions to it, they will most likely happen within the first few seconds of injection.”
He ties a band around my arm and I tighten my eyes knowing it will help the vein protrude.
“So, we’re just checking for the vein.”
“Sir, please, the more you talk about the worse it is.”
“So, am I correct, you don’t want to know that I’m about to put the needle in?”

All these hospital visits are the same. He slides me into the MRI nauseated. Jesus loves me yes I know, for the Bible tells me so. Why are you singing that? I hadn’t heard that song since bible study class in pre-elementary school. Stop, you’re not dying. Little ones to Him belong. I keep my eyes open for a moment, but my body tightens the further he moves me into the narrow tunnel. Shut your eyes fast. I know if I keep my eyes open the entire time I will freak out. Let His little child come in. I want to throw up. No, you’re not throwing up.
“You ok in there?” the technician asks.
“Yes.” No.
“Ok, we’re going to start the first cycle.”
Something sounds like it smashed into the side of the tunnel that encloses me. I recite Rugyard Kipling’s If six times. Then I recite the Desiderata. Then Hamlet’s To Be or Not to Be from a high school play. The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. The sound of machines screaming and jackhammers surround me. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. The pounding continues. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
I am in for 45 minutes. Go placidly amid the noise and the haste. After the first few cycles I get used to the pattern of sounds and begin matching them to what they sound like: helicopter blades coming closer, here’s the small man with the tiny hammer, ready for a round of jackhammers… But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
If I pretend I’m in some type of schizophrenic cartoon and attempt to anticipate the sounds, I tell myself I can get through this. If you can fill the unforgiving minute. Find something else to concentrate on. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew.

The technician stares at the black and white images of my brain. “Keep holding still. You’re doing great,” he emphasizes when a few start turning out shaky. All x-ray images remind me of those first fetal pictures that mothers are so excited about. Those black and white images that showcase the subtle ebbing of movement, the first inclination of a miracle. Even though the technician is not trained in reading MRI images, he tilts his head strangely at the shadowy mass in my left lobe.

On the way out, my mom says, “I saw your brain. It looked smart.”

I dream of dogs. To sleep--perchance to dream. Wild dogs. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. The ones that run feral in Australia and tear off with small children. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. They surround me in the hospital bed, in the MRI machine, in the waiting room. They crowd my liver and breed in the walls of my brain. I can’t ignore the dogs. To be, or not to be. The doctor tells me, “You don’t have to be so cheery."

Allie Moreno

absinthe minded

he laughs
s   t   r   e   a   m   s

        left leg
                wrapped
                in
                worn out
                 pages


        the        l i d d e r
             bearing
                  l a z a r d

                                 and the
                   giant little
                                girl

                DANCE in
              animated
           ink


herSHOUTS
w a k e

        the absinthe
       minded

              whose voices
                    t i c k

              like faceless
                     c  l o  c  k  s
                  “LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE!”
                 
the thousand
year old
cat          who often disappears

        cradles
       black market
       babies


wishing to
w a s h
    them

in a bath
   of
   w i n e

                as   he       whispers
                                                                     fortune
                                                                      cookie
  
                                                                       lies

if parking lots perspired

tonight

                                                                                              a cold
                                                                                                                quiet rock
                                                                                     and pensive            plant

                                                                                     a            street            light
                                                                                                    blinks            and
                                                                              bends        its        eyes

queue
hasten

                                                                                                                     papers
                                                                                                                     faint on
                                                                                          concrete
                                                                                                   cheeks

still walking

                                                                                                        desolate fence
                                                                                                   shuns
                                                                                        startled        truck

                                                                                                                    run from
                                                                                                     glaring      doors
                                                                                                                 be not the
                                                                                  window scream

tiptoe the
asphalt bowl

switching
manic keyholes

                                                                                            for orange     escape
                                                                                                            and        sips
                                                                                          of eyelet
                                                                                                haze

Cherise Bacalski


LONG FLEE FORWARD


     ______________________________________________


     flee long up my forward
     long wander found—


                   pule tumid—

            pule—




     still cache touché
              thrush uh jato unit—



                      (arch randy daddy, arch skin)


     ______________________________________________


     disrupt—

           carp weed—disrupt micawber—
                        perspire under constance—
     wearing retral current bout—
                     rupture momentary rue—


     flee     long   current—
                     go   long  upward,    up skin—


                     rupture my
                             carp weed, you know—


     (knob on skin)


     ______________________________________________


     weighty non absent remedy—

             image forward


                           sidereal—

                                   taken reply:

                                            abort—

                                   delve bog sky:
                                           erstwise
                                     acrid journey—

     heave a randy
             have a yen.

FLEE LONG, STILL

     FLEE:




          thrush: forward

                         sidereal

                         jato unit

                   micawber

          flank l’aspen

     REMEDY:




          taken: reply

                         image

                         retral current

                   pule

          momentary rue

     RUPTURE:




         erstwhile: abort

                          carp weed

                          tumid

                  disrupt romaine

         have a yen

    CACHE:




         heave: randy

                         woodnote

                         acrid jitney

                  devote

         access port

     LONG:




          wander: found

                         firma piste

                         armchair knob

                  absent

          delve port rue

     STILL:




          remove: wander

                        alcove

                        constance

                 perspire

          weighty non oolert

la oud



oh mere—

             ah shant tweet tweet
             the sound
             for two

             and me and now
             and you and
             you
             and me

     profound
     oh too sweet tweet
     (portray) ruh sound




la ahhhh—

             because tweet tweet
             the sound
             the sweet
       
             uh lie
             oh mere
             ah ha
             and now

     ah shant tweet tweet
     tee hee
     (reflect) tee hee




                    —la oud

             dah
             lee eeee—
             la oud

Ben Doller

KICK THE FLAG

what of course is the massive deal
kicking flags
ento wenning wormholes

it's just that day
afterall
howl ground & smother

should troops
year finger
indemned

into tame tame space

the tree cracks
white
by mouth

ashame me not
take me home

Marika Josephson

5 Visions of Summer
New York Haiku

In this secluded
garden a starling, humming,
a diesel engine

Man in a black suit
steps into the shade to read
the missing person sign

Muggy, damp Monday
I hold this paper limply
toward my pencil

Because I could sleep!
I didn’t even notice
missing cicadas

Me, on the stool
Stale summer air, the living room
You, by the door